Praat-script NPM

praat-script

Generate and run Praat scripts from Node.js.

Installation

Download node at nodejs.org and install it, if you haven't already.

npm install praat-script --save

To actually run scripts, you will need Praat. node-praat (npm install praat) is one easy way to install it in a Node application. praat is an optional dependency of praat-script and is required for the .run() convenience method to function correctly.

Usage

Creating and running scripts

To demonstrate praat-script, we'll use a simple script that generates a Sound object, plays it and exits.

var praatScript = require('praat-script');
praatScript([
  'Create Sound as pure tone: "tone", 1, 0, 0.1, 44100, 440, 0.2, 0.01, 0.01' + '\r\n' +
  'Play'
]).run(function(err) {
    if (err)
        throw err;
    console.log('Success!');
});

But this module really shines when used along with ES6 tagged template strings.

Since template strings are multi-line, the ES6 version of our static script is already nicer to look at: (Run with a JavaScript engine that supports ES6 template strings, or use a transpiler like Traceur.)

praatScript`
  Create Sound as pure tone: "tone", 1, 0, 0.1, 44100, 440, 0.2, 0.01, 0.01
  Play
` //.run(...);

And now we can even embed JavaScript expressions directly in our Praat code! praat-script quotes and escapes everything correctly.

var freq = 440;
var name = "theTone";
praatScript`
  Create Sound as pure tone: ${name}, 1, 0, 0.1, 44100, ${freq * 2}, 0.2, 0.01, 0.01
  Play
` //.run(...);

Of course, since template strings are merely syntactic sugar, you can technically also do the same in ES5, though it won't be as readable:

praatScript(
    [
        'Create Sound as pure tone: ',
        /* name will go here */ ', 1, 0, 0.1, 44100, ',
        /* freq*2 will go here */ ', 0.2, 0.01, 0.01' + '\r\n' +
        'Play'
    ],
    name, freq*2
) //.run(...);

Miscellaneous functions

Getting the text of a script

praatScript`...` .toString() or praatScript([...]).toString() works as you'd expect.

Specifying the path to Praat

Using .runWith('path/to/praat', callback) instead of .run(callback) will use the specified Praat executable instead of the default (which is the path returned by require('praat')).

`.formatArgument(value)`

praatScript.formatArgument(value) takes a JavaScript value and returns a string formatted for use in Praat.

`.run(script, cb)` (and `.runWith(pathToPraat, script, cb)`)

You can bypass the template functionality entirely and execute a script by passing its source code as praatScript.run()'s first argument (a string). This otherwise works similarly to calling .run() on the template string instance.

Tests

npm install
npm test

> praat-script@0.1.1 test node-praat-script
> mocha
  praat-script module
    #formatArgument()
      √ should quote and escape string arguments 
      √ should stringify numbers 
      √ should convert booleans to 0 and 1 
    template string
      √ should escape arguments correctly via praatScript`...` 
    #run()
      √ should run an empty script successfully (118ms)
      √ should run a simple script successfully (872ms)
      √ should run a template string script successfully (1052ms)
  template script instance
    #run()
      √ should run an empty script successfully (82ms)
      √ should run a simple script successfully (950ms)
      √ should run a template string script successfully (897ms)
  10 passing (4s)

Dependencies

tmp: Temporary file and directory creator

Optional Dependencies

praat: A cross-platform NPM installer for Praat (required to use .run())

Dev Dependencies

mocha: simple, flexible, fun test framework
mocha-traceur: A "compiler" plugin for Mocha that makes non-dependency JS files to pass through Traceur
traceur: ES6 to ES5 compiler